52 comments:

You write beautifully of these strange occurrences.I think I would be a little frightened.Yes, I do think traces linger of people who have lived where we do now.The 500 year old house in Morocco was 'interesting' but only a little eerie.Yes, write more stories for us!

How fascinating! And spookie! Glad your ghost is a good one. If she ever organizes your junk drawer will you ask her if she's free on Thursdays? I could use some help with mine, and we have no resident ghosts. Great story!

Willow! I am absolutely HOOKED on this line of story...I will wait expectantly for the next installment! I think the hair raised on my neck when you said you could feel the force of her breath on your face! OY!

How exciting Willow. She sounds like a very helpful ghost. I had a friend who's house was haunted, the resident female ghost would apparently wash up when they went out! I don't know if that was actually true but i'd like to think it was :-)

Steph, I'm going to have to google TAPS. Is it some kind of paranormal organization? I did email an Ohio based group that comes to your house and runs atmospheric test, etc. I didn't hear back from them, but would love to have them check things out.

I love stories like this and can't wait to read more from you! I've only seen a ghost once - a little boy who I reached out to in the middle of the night, because I thought he was my son. He backed away and disappeared.

WOw, I am not sure how you can live with that. I would be absolutely spooked. And your kids... I guess when they grew up with it, maybe it doesn't seem strange but how are your guests able to cope? Seriously! I get it that you're not being harmed, but the first few years had to have been scary. Would like to know more!

So glad you came by and hope you come back often, and check the other two blogs as well. I think you'd also like Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast as well. A million people have "borrowed" from the images in this film, but it was done in this one first. Just beautiful, think you'd love it too.

I don't know why the female shows up at only certain hours of the night. I saw the male ghost in the daytime. I used to watch a baby during the days when her mother worked. She would often look up the back staircase, smile and wave. No one was in the house but the two of us!

Willow, eeek!! I was once told often an elderly lonely person dies but doesnt know how to seek the other side so instead stays in the familiar home...your home. The perfume is fascinating...I have a nose like a bloodhound but too far away to help! Please continue these stories!!!Mary Ann

serious!? - willow, this is just amazing - I love how your family finds this all normal at the manor - I don't know about the whispering in my face though - that would probably creep me out! can't wait to hear about the male ghost!

Often I smell frying pankes in the bedroom or my mother's favourite flowers to make me aware that she is near.One of th houses my daughter lived in was haunted in a most unpleasant way and I ended up clearing the ghosts. I must admit I was not at all at ease while doing so.I love your ghostly presences. Remember it was the guest room before, maybe she stealthily entered to whisper to her lover.I hope she comes back to tidy the rest of that drawer!

TAPS (www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com) not only investigates paranormal activity, they televise it on their show, Ghosthunters. I have a friend who knows the team personally and she says they're 100% reputable and sincere.

Wonderful! I'd love to meet them... and identify the perfume. I think when you grow up with them around you and when you "accept" them as part of your surroundings, it becomes a part of daily life. I have had a few encounters as well... quite fascinating, isn't it? You and your sister are on a spooky bent today! Love Poe... Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."

I loved your ghost story. I was wondering, maybe she came down to ask you to turn the volume of the telly down :-)? Just joking. I think that in old houses like yours we're already pre-conditioned to feel an alien presence. Although, primarily a pragmatic atheist, I, too, have had my paranormal experiences which have scared me and left me bewildered and confused.

Excellent choice of poem to illustrate your column. I love Poe. And 'The Raven' leaves the reader with such an eerie, uneasy feeling. It's funny that Poe (or the narrator) actually welcomes the apparition (And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain/Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before), and in doing so, accommodates the reader, cushions him or her in his own bosom. It's almost like reading a ghost story sitting on Grandma or Grandpa's legs. You freak out a bit, but you know that the warm hug is ever so close by, too, should you ever need it.

Can I borrow your ghost? I have cupboards that need sorting out and our house is too new to have ghosts (unless you count the numerous birds, mice and lizards that had met with violent death here already and must haunt my cats).

I can so relate to this, my guy smokes a pipe in the utility room. After speaking to the the daughter of the man who built the home we live in, we found out his wife wouldn't let him puff his pipe in the home so he would light up in the garden room (which is now the utility)..... Then there is my French nun, who has been with me since i was a child......... Great post Willow, if its ok with you and Musewings is Monday free I could really do with a de-clutter......

Willow, I don't think I could remain as cool and as calm as you do with the goings on. I love hearing your stories though and look forward to the next batch. I'm also very interested in your experiments with the audio recorder. yes, yes, yes please try it!

Just cam eback and read thru more comments and Willow, in your one to me about the baby waving -- that is seriously freak material. I admire you, I'm not made of the same stuff. I'd be off light lightening to some other manor, lol, lovely as yours is!

R.A.D. Stainforth reads my poems

I pledge to read the printed word

I adore the scent of old paper in secondhand bookshops, the
dance of words on a page, gathering odd things like a magpie, fresh flowers, woolly socks, keeping company with art, the thrill of film, and
concocting an occasional culinary delight for the people I love.